FORECAST EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

FOLD 1

Passing, 2010. Freezer bags and air.

SENYE SHEN Senye Shen’s installations are related to the impermanence and intangible things of life.

She seeks to provide an ethereal or ephemeral experience in a transformed space, which aims to alter the state of consciousness of the viewer. It is through this given material that has been installed in the space, that Shen seeks to create this sensible feeling, a different perspective, that heightens the awareness of intangible things, and to bring to the forefront through its tactile association.

JESSICA VAN SPALL

CASPAR ZIKA

Jessica Van Spall’s work explores the universal phenomenon of feeling ‘alone in a crowd’—the idea that social interaction and communication can be internally contained from the outside world through the subconscious and conscious use of psychological barriers. This self-exclusion is particularly true in individuals with traumatic pasts. The artist says that she often feels unable to relate or cut off from those around her on some level, the realisation that this is self imposed and yet unchangeable is an eye opening experience. Van Spall’s installation creates physical boundaries between viewer and the ‘world’ reflecting the unconscious way individuals impose barriers on the self.

Caspar Zika works across a variety of mediums encompassing sculpture, installation and time based media. His works are generally site specific; using a variety of objects and mixed media; from mechanised devices coupled with rudimentary tools to drawing implements. Zika’s practice explores the relationship individuals have with their interior architectural environments. Through documentation of gestures and monotonous mechanical cycles he gives recorded form to the actions of people in space.

Themes such as childhood, vocation and the processes involved in ‘art-making’ have been a constant source of interest throughout his practice. The meaningfulness of the gesture and futility of artistic creation are ongoing points of reference.

BIOGRAPHY: Jessica Van Spall, born 1988 recently finished her BFA at Monash University majoring in Printmedia and Theory. Her various media of choice include audio, installation and print, in an effort to create a phenomenological connection between her art and the viewer.

BIOGRAPHY: Senye Shen studied a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in Monash University and Diploma of Visual Arts in Swinburne. Initially she focused on painting and drawing, later, she mainly focused on installation works that related to space, movement, light and invisible things that one does not consciously deal with. She participated solo and with group shows, was a finalist in many art exhibitions, and she received art awards plus commissioned works.

Tune out, 2010. Installation with fabric and ink

Inbetween, 2010. Video and mixed medium instillation, dimensions variable.

AUTUMN TANSEY Only in liminal space can transformation occur. Inbetween draws on the relationship between humans, animals and the land into a tangible space, with the recurring motif of contamination as a reaction to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The broken remnants of a past event are the focus within the installation, and as the shadows seep over the costume and darken the space, a ghostly presence is found that alludes to a spiritual lingering. The two parts have juxtaposing significance; the nest acts as a place of birth, a sign of renewal, and the floating feathers become a sign of ascension and death, and yet both of these are tainted from the past and the present. The emptiness of the space between the objects allows for thoughts around liminality, becoming a space for transformation Inbetween.

BIOGRAPHY: Autumn Tansey has recently completed a Bachelor Fine Arts (Photomedia) from Monash University in 2010. Whilst having always been creative, Autumns background in dancing and clothing design contribute to the performative and textural qualities within her work. Some recent highlights include receiving the Kayell Australia Excellence in Photomedia Award, the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates, and a nomination for Hatched 2011 at PICA. Autumn has exhibited at Obscura Gallery, Trocadero Art Spaces, Tinning St. Gallery, Monash Faculty Gallery and Without Pier Gallery, with career highlights including a residency in Prato, Italy in 2009.

FOLD 3

FOLD 2

BIOGRAPHY: Caspar Zika is an emerging installation and video artist based in Melbourne, Australia. After studying neuroscience at La Trobe University, travelling extensively and living overseas for several years, he is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts (part-time) at Monash University which is due for completion by the end of 2011.

In 2010 he took part in the Monash University Graduate Exhibition where he was awarded with the Place Gallery Award, Coates & Wood Sculpture Award and Alliance Francaise Prize for Monash University Graduates.

In 2011 he is due to participate in several group shows and a solo exhibition at Place Gallery.

He is currently negotiating to display work in a number of unused commercial spaces awaiting demolition or redevelopment in the inner suburbs of Melbourne as a way of extending and developing his practice.

FORECAST GABRIELLA CALANDRO YSABELLE DAUGUET APRIL FRENCH AMY HEALY VALERIYA OGORODNYK JUSTINE ROUSE AMANDA SANTAMARIA SENYE SHEN JESSICA VAN SPALL AUTUMN TANSEY CASPAR ZIKA

Recipients of the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates.

05– 21 May 2011 This is the third year that the Alliance Française Melbourne has collaborated with the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University in selecting students for this graduate show.

Forecast celebrates the interdisciplinary nature of the practice being developed by graduates from the Department of Fine Arts at Monash University. This exhibition also gives these artists the opportunity to contribute to a dialog that recognises the fragile state of the environment, culture and the psyche.

forecast

Curated by Patrice Pauc and Matthew Perkins

Alliance Française Gallery

51 Grey Street ST KILDA VIC 3182 Tel: 9525 3463 Website: www.afmelbourne.com.au

Untitled, 2010. Photographs by: Alex Lyne

Front: Senye Shen, Passing (detail), 2010, freezer bags and air

[back cover]

[front cover]

FOLD 3 Monash University is an energetic and dynamic university committed to quality education, outstanding research and international engagement. A member of Australia’s Group of Eight research intensive universities, it seeks to improve the human condition and is committed to a sustainable future. Monash has six campuses in Victoria, a campus in Malaysia, a campus in South Africa, a centre in Prato, Italy, and numerous international partnerships and cooperative ventures. Within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture the Department of Fine Arts has had an ongoing relationship with Alliance Française for a number of years, through the visiting artist program and Alliance Française exhibition program. These programs add a richness to the culture of Melbourne and have resulted in collaborations such as the exhibition After the Gold-rush,

by Marie Jeanne Hoffner and Stephen Garrett. We also look forward to seeing the Melbourne inspired works by recent artist in residence Emmanuel Bernardoux The Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University is one of Australia’s leading educators in art and design. The Faculty offers courses for talented students. They are professional, flexible, contemporary and relevant. The faculty produces skilled graduates who shape the future of art and design practice nationally and on the International stage. In the Department of Fine Arts, we believe that each individual enrolling in our various courses carries within them a unique voice, constituted by their particular histories, experiences and sensibilities. Through critique, study and practice, this voice becomes richer and more voluminous, allowing each student to construct an individual narrative within the wider story of contemporary art. Most importantly however, is the relationship between these individual narratives, and the community to which they are addressed.

‘Forecast’ is the third annual exhibition of the Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates. The students selected for this exhibition represent some of the most remarkable talents of their peer group and consequently their generation: yet this would be meaningless without an audience – the social field within which art is situated. This two-way discourse, between artist and viewer, is what makes an artwork ‘real’. The Faculty of Art & Design is delighted to be able to collaborate with the Alliance Française to make the product of the students’ studies ‘real’: to bring the work of these outstanding graduates to the wider world, an experience of enormous benefit to them emerging artists, but also, we hope, of real value to the community – and conditions – that we all share.

Dr Marian Hosking Acting Head of Fine Arts Faculty Art & Design, Monash University

Follow me (detail, day 16), 2010 Installation, various dimensions

GABRIELLA CALANDRO Gabriella Calandro investigates how to make the viewer more aware of their body within a space. The instructional booklets encourage the participants to recognise their actions within the space and moreover to become sensitive to their own movements. As the viewers connect with the space not only do they connect with their bodies as they become more aware of their actions, but also the other objects and people within the space.

Each task undertaken by the viewer alters the space for future participants therefore the experience of the space is different for each person. Once the viewers have left the space their trace is still visible to other participants.

As a result not only are the viewers aware of their actions while participating in the exhibit, but future participants can see the trace they have left behind.

These actions make the viewer fully aware of their surroundings and the other participants within the space.

BIOGRAPHY: After completing VCE in 2006 Gabriella Calandro commenced her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University. Following the completion of Honours in Fine Arts at Monash University last year she is now undertaking a Masters of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne.

Through prints, drawing and installation works Gabriella’s practice investigates movements of the body in space.

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FOLD 1

YSABELLE DAUGUET

AMY HEALY

JUSTINE ROUSE

In Ysabelle Dauguet’s work colour plays a critical part in terms of visual properties. She explores the relationship between how bodies interact in the space around them and also ideas related to memory. An image or a scene from the past is often blurred with missing links; often the missing pieces are the figures.

Dauguet portrays these visual insights by applying different methods of paint, from transparent, semi-transparent to opaque layers to build up the image. The body becomes attached to a space or a place through spatial activity and one’s experience.

Amy Healy’s Strung Thoughts started as a means to step outside the realm of traditional art. It has become a study of what beautiful art means to a modern society. It steps beyond the boundaries not just in the way in which the work was conceived but within the way it has been made. Generations of mark making are evident within the work. From the basic of traditional drawing and stitching, to twenty first century computerized scanning and copying. It draws from the traditions of today and yesterday.

The exploration of the propping gesture in Justine Rouse’s studio work emerged as a method of working through the problem of presentation that object-based sculpture had raised for her, and as a result Rouse’s practice has shifted toward the incorporation of site into the work. Rather than creating autonomous sculptural objects, the architectonic features of a space have been integrated into the work, and are essential for its structure. The history of the pedestal in sculpture and the phenomenology of viewing have provided the theoretical contexts for Rouse’s work.

BIOGRAPHY: Ysabelle Dauguet is a Graduate of the Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University and is currently undertaking the Honours degree in painting at the same university. Her work is concerned with the relationship of the body and space through the investigation of how bodies occupy space and objects they interact with. A strong interest in colour and methods of paintings are her ways of approach, creating visual dynamics within the composition of the painting. Her practice is driven by childhood’s connection to space or place, spatial abilities and awareness to time. One of her works can be seen at the Tolarno Hotel’s Art Collection in St.Kilda.

Untitled, 2010. Oil on canvas, 900mm x 600mm.

Re-vision, 2010.

Mylar, mirrors, yupo–octopus clear, acrylic bump-ons, upholstery tacks. Dimensions variable

APRIL FRENCH “Mirrors present the opposite of blindness– sight without touch” Richard Gregory April French takes Inspiration from the Braille alphabet, which she has adapted into a very different context via scale. The nature of the materials queries the privileged position of sight in art, encouraging a tactile exploration of the work.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder has been manipulated!, 2010. Archival Inkjet Print

BIOGRAPHY: Amy Healy is a Graduate of the Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University. Her work has taken her through an exploration of what it means to create “beautiful” art through various mediums of mark making. She was lucky enough to attend the Monash University’s Prato Italy program where the inspiration for this work began. She will be continuing her studies at Swinburne University this year.

BIOGRAPHY: April French is currently in her final year of a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University.

With a professional career in graphic design, it is not surpising that her work is concerned with language, vision and communication.

During her studies at Monash April participated in the 2009 Prato semester program, an 8 week intensive semester based in Italy, which included a group exhibition for the Giornata Del Contemporaneo (Day of the Contemporary).

VALERIYA OGORODNYK Valeriya Ogorodnyk’s work deals with the themes of women’s beauty, the aging process and constructed ideal of the female image in contemporary society. Her work confronts the subject of commoditization and idealization of the female body within the fashion industry and consumer culture.

Ogorodnyk’s goal is to create images that challenge the commercialized cult of body and explore the perception of beauty.

BIOGRAPHY: Justine Rouse is a Melbourne based artist whose current interest lies in exploring the potential energy that exists at the point of contact between objects, and how it may manifest in the viewer. Recent work has centred on propping as an operation in sculpture; moving from the prop:object relationship to prop:architecture. She has previously exhibited in group shows at Conical, Craft Victoria and the Eildon Gallery.

BIOGRAPHY: Valeriya Ogorodnyk was born in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine and moved to Australia in 2008. She completed a Bachelor of Graphic Design at the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Art in the Ukraine in 2008 and a Masters of Graphic Design from the same university in 2011. In 2010 Ogorodnyk completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University.

Strung Thoughts, 2009 Paper, Permanent Marker, Fineliner, Ink, Cotton

Untitled (drifting), 2010. Video

AMANDA SANTAMARIA Untitled (drifting) explores the Romantic view of the landscape as an outlet for selfrealisation and identification, while also acknowledging the ocean as a symbol of desire and the unfamiliar. It refers to German Romanticism, where the confrontation with the sublime exists as a solitary experience, in which infinite expanse is a forefront for our projection of thought, desire and surrender to the unknown, “[turning] the landscape back on the viewer and locating us in our subjectivity.”

BIOGRAPHY Amanda Santamaria is a recent graduate of Monash University, Melbourne, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Photomedia). She has been included in various group shows in Melbourne and is one of the recipients of the Alliance Française Prize for Monash graduates, 2010. Her work is concerned with themes of identity, existence and unconscious desire.

Contingency for Room D1.12, 2010 Found objects, dimensions variable.

FOLD 3 Monash University is an energetic and dynamic university committed to quality education, outstanding research and international engagement. A member of Australia’s Group of Eight research intensive universities, it seeks to improve the human condition and is committed to a sustainable future. Monash has six campuses in Victoria, a campus in Malaysia, a campus in South Africa, a centre in Prato, Italy, and numerous international partnerships and cooperative ventures. Within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture the Department of Fine Arts has had an ongoing relationship with Alliance Française for a number of years, through the visiting artist program and Alliance Française exhibition program. These programs add a richness to the culture of Melbourne and have resulted in collaborations such as the exhibition After the Gold-rush,

by Marie Jeanne Hoffner and Stephen Garrett. We also look forward to seeing the Melbourne inspired works by recent artist in residence Emmanuel Bernardoux The Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University is one of Australia’s leading educators in art and design. The Faculty offers courses for talented students. They are professional, flexible, contemporary and relevant. The faculty produces skilled graduates who shape the future of art and design practice nationally and on the International stage. In the Department of Fine Arts, we believe that each individual enrolling in our various courses carries within them a unique voice, constituted by their particular histories, experiences and sensibilities. Through critique, study and practice, this voice becomes richer and more voluminous, allowing each student to construct an individual narrative within the wider story of contemporary art. Most importantly however, is the relationship between these individual narratives, and the community to which they are addressed.

‘Forecast’ is the third annual exhibition of the Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates. The students selected for this exhibition represent some of the most remarkable talents of their peer group and consequently their generation: yet this would be meaningless without an audience – the social field within which art is situated. This two-way discourse, between artist and viewer, is what makes an artwork ‘real’. The Faculty of Art & Design is delighted to be able to collaborate with the Alliance Française to make the product of the students’ studies ‘real’: to bring the work of these outstanding graduates to the wider world, an experience of enormous benefit to them emerging artists, but also, we hope, of real value to the community – and conditions – that we all share.

Dr Marian Hosking Acting Head of Fine Arts Faculty Art & Design, Monash University

Follow me (detail, day 16), 2010 Installation, various dimensions

GABRIELLA CALANDRO Gabriella Calandro investigates how to make the viewer more aware of their body within a space. The instructional booklets encourage the participants to recognise their actions within the space and moreover to become sensitive to their own movements. As the viewers connect with the space not only do they connect with their bodies as they become more aware of their actions, but also the other objects and people within the space.

Each task undertaken by the viewer alters the space for future participants therefore the experience of the space is different for each person. Once the viewers have left the space their trace is still visible to other participants.

As a result not only are the viewers aware of their actions while participating in the exhibit, but future participants can see the trace they have left behind.

These actions make the viewer fully aware of their surroundings and the other participants within the space.

BIOGRAPHY: After completing VCE in 2006 Gabriella Calandro commenced her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University. Following the completion of Honours in Fine Arts at Monash University last year she is now undertaking a Masters of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne.

Through prints, drawing and installation works Gabriella’s practice investigates movements of the body in space.

FOLD 2

FOLD 1

YSABELLE DAUGUET

AMY HEALY

JUSTINE ROUSE

In Ysabelle Dauguet’s work colour plays a critical part in terms of visual properties. She explores the relationship between how bodies interact in the space around them and also ideas related to memory. An image or a scene from the past is often blurred with missing links; often the missing pieces are the figures.

Dauguet portrays these visual insights by applying different methods of paint, from transparent, semi-transparent to opaque layers to build up the image. The body becomes attached to a space or a place through spatial activity and one’s experience.

Amy Healy’s Strung Thoughts started as a means to step outside the realm of traditional art. It has become a study of what beautiful art means to a modern society. It steps beyond the boundaries not just in the way in which the work was conceived but within the way it has been made. Generations of mark making are evident within the work. From the basic of traditional drawing and stitching, to twenty first century computerized scanning and copying. It draws from the traditions of today and yesterday.

The exploration of the propping gesture in Justine Rouse’s studio work emerged as a method of working through the problem of presentation that object-based sculpture had raised for her, and as a result Rouse’s practice has shifted toward the incorporation of site into the work. Rather than creating autonomous sculptural objects, the architectonic features of a space have been integrated into the work, and are essential for its structure. The history of the pedestal in sculpture and the phenomenology of viewing have provided the theoretical contexts for Rouse’s work.

BIOGRAPHY: Ysabelle Dauguet is a Graduate of the Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University and is currently undertaking the Honours degree in painting at the same university. Her work is concerned with the relationship of the body and space through the investigation of how bodies occupy space and objects they interact with. A strong interest in colour and methods of paintings are her ways of approach, creating visual dynamics within the composition of the painting. Her practice is driven by childhood’s connection to space or place, spatial abilities and awareness to time. One of her works can be seen at the Tolarno Hotel’s Art Collection in St.Kilda.

Untitled, 2010. Oil on canvas, 900mm x 600mm.

Re-vision, 2010.

Mylar, mirrors, yupo–octopus clear, acrylic bump-ons, upholstery tacks. Dimensions variable

APRIL FRENCH “Mirrors present the opposite of blindness– sight without touch” Richard Gregory April French takes Inspiration from the Braille alphabet, which she has adapted into a very different context via scale. The nature of the materials queries the privileged position of sight in art, encouraging a tactile exploration of the work.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder has been manipulated!, 2010. Archival Inkjet Print

BIOGRAPHY: Amy Healy is a Graduate of the Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University. Her work has taken her through an exploration of what it means to create “beautiful” art through various mediums of mark making. She was lucky enough to attend the Monash University’s Prato Italy program where the inspiration for this work began. She will be continuing her studies at Swinburne University this year.

BIOGRAPHY: April French is currently in her final year of a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University.

With a professional career in graphic design, it is not surpising that her work is concerned with language, vision and communication.

During her studies at Monash April participated in the 2009 Prato semester program, an 8 week intensive semester based in Italy, which included a group exhibition for the Giornata Del Contemporaneo (Day of the Contemporary).

VALERIYA OGORODNYK Valeriya Ogorodnyk’s work deals with the themes of women’s beauty, the aging process and constructed ideal of the female image in contemporary society. Her work confronts the subject of commoditization and idealization of the female body within the fashion industry and consumer culture.

Ogorodnyk’s goal is to create images that challenge the commercialized cult of body and explore the perception of beauty.

BIOGRAPHY: Justine Rouse is a Melbourne based artist whose current interest lies in exploring the potential energy that exists at the point of contact between objects, and how it may manifest in the viewer. Recent work has centred on propping as an operation in sculpture; moving from the prop:object relationship to prop:architecture. She has previously exhibited in group shows at Conical, Craft Victoria and the Eildon Gallery.

BIOGRAPHY: Valeriya Ogorodnyk was born in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine and moved to Australia in 2008. She completed a Bachelor of Graphic Design at the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Art in the Ukraine in 2008 and a Masters of Graphic Design from the same university in 2011. In 2010 Ogorodnyk completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Monash University.

Strung Thoughts, 2009 Paper, Permanent Marker, Fineliner, Ink, Cotton

Untitled (drifting), 2010. Video

AMANDA SANTAMARIA Untitled (drifting) explores the Romantic view of the landscape as an outlet for selfrealisation and identification, while also acknowledging the ocean as a symbol of desire and the unfamiliar. It refers to German Romanticism, where the confrontation with the sublime exists as a solitary experience, in which infinite expanse is a forefront for our projection of thought, desire and surrender to the unknown, “[turning] the landscape back on the viewer and locating us in our subjectivity.”

BIOGRAPHY Amanda Santamaria is a recent graduate of Monash University, Melbourne, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Photomedia). She has been included in various group shows in Melbourne and is one of the recipients of the Alliance Française Prize for Monash graduates, 2010. Her work is concerned with themes of identity, existence and unconscious desire.

Contingency for Room D1.12, 2010 Found objects, dimensions variable.

FOLD 1

Passing, 2010. Freezer bags and air.

SENYE SHEN Senye Shen’s installations are related to the impermanence and intangible things of life.

She seeks to provide an ethereal or ephemeral experience in a transformed space, which aims to alter the state of consciousness of the viewer. It is through this given material that has been installed in the space, that Shen seeks to create this sensible feeling, a different perspective, that heightens the awareness of intangible things, and to bring to the forefront through its tactile association.

JESSICA VAN SPALL

CASPAR ZIKA

Jessica Van Spall’s work explores the universal phenomenon of feeling ‘alone in a crowd’—the idea that social interaction and communication can be internally contained from the outside world through the subconscious and conscious use of psychological barriers. This self-exclusion is particularly true in individuals with traumatic pasts. The artist says that she often feels unable to relate or cut off from those around her on some level, the realisation that this is self imposed and yet unchangeable is an eye opening experience. Van Spall’s installation creates physical boundaries between viewer and the ‘world’ reflecting the unconscious way individuals impose barriers on the self.

Caspar Zika works across a variety of mediums encompassing sculpture, installation and time based media. His works are generally site specific; using a variety of objects and mixed media; from mechanised devices coupled with rudimentary tools to drawing implements. Zika’s practice explores the relationship individuals have with their interior architectural environments. Through documentation of gestures and monotonous mechanical cycles he gives recorded form to the actions of people in space.

Themes such as childhood, vocation and the processes involved in ‘art-making’ have been a constant source of interest throughout his practice. The meaningfulness of the gesture and futility of artistic creation are ongoing points of reference.

BIOGRAPHY: Jessica Van Spall, born 1988 recently finished her BFA at Monash University majoring in Printmedia and Theory. Her various media of choice include audio, installation and print, in an effort to create a phenomenological connection between her art and the viewer.

BIOGRAPHY: Senye Shen studied a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in Monash University and Diploma of Visual Arts in Swinburne. Initially she focused on painting and drawing, later, she mainly focused on installation works that related to space, movement, light and invisible things that one does not consciously deal with. She participated solo and with group shows, was a finalist in many art exhibitions, and she received art awards plus commissioned works.

Tune out, 2010. Installation with fabric and ink

Inbetween, 2010. Video and mixed medium instillation, dimensions variable.

AUTUMN TANSEY Only in liminal space can transformation occur. Inbetween draws on the relationship between humans, animals and the land into a tangible space, with the recurring motif of contamination as a reaction to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The broken remnants of a past event are the focus within the installation, and as the shadows seep over the costume and darken the space, a ghostly presence is found that alludes to a spiritual lingering. The two parts have juxtaposing significance; the nest acts as a place of birth, a sign of renewal, and the floating feathers become a sign of ascension and death, and yet both of these are tainted from the past and the present. The emptiness of the space between the objects allows for thoughts around liminality, becoming a space for transformation Inbetween.

BIOGRAPHY: Autumn Tansey has recently completed a Bachelor Fine Arts (Photomedia) from Monash University in 2010. Whilst having always been creative, Autumns background in dancing and clothing design contribute to the performative and textural qualities within her work. Some recent highlights include receiving the Kayell Australia Excellence in Photomedia Award, the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates, and a nomination for Hatched 2011 at PICA. Autumn has exhibited at Obscura Gallery, Trocadero Art Spaces, Tinning St. Gallery, Monash Faculty Gallery and Without Pier Gallery, with career highlights including a residency in Prato, Italy in 2009.

FOLD 3

FOLD 2

BIOGRAPHY: Caspar Zika is an emerging installation and video artist based in Melbourne, Australia. After studying neuroscience at La Trobe University, travelling extensively and living overseas for several years, he is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts (part-time) at Monash University which is due for completion by the end of 2011.

In 2010 he took part in the Monash University Graduate Exhibition where he was awarded with the Place Gallery Award, Coates & Wood Sculpture Award and Alliance Francaise Prize for Monash University Graduates.

In 2011 he is due to participate in several group shows and a solo exhibition at Place Gallery.

He is currently negotiating to display work in a number of unused commercial spaces awaiting demolition or redevelopment in the inner suburbs of Melbourne as a way of extending and developing his practice.

FORECAST GABRIELLA CALANDRO YSABELLE DAUGUET APRIL FRENCH AMY HEALY VALERIYA OGORODNYK JUSTINE ROUSE AMANDA SANTAMARIA SENYE SHEN JESSICA VAN SPALL AUTUMN TANSEY CASPAR ZIKA

Recipients of the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates.

05– 21 May 2011 This is the third year that the Alliance Française Melbourne has collaborated with the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University in selecting students for this graduate show.

Forecast celebrates the interdisciplinary nature of the practice being developed by graduates from the Department of Fine Arts at Monash University. This exhibition also gives these artists the opportunity to contribute to a dialog that recognises the fragile state of the environment, culture and the psyche.

forecast

Curated by Patrice Pauc and Matthew Perkins

Alliance Française Gallery

51 Grey Street ST KILDA VIC 3182 Tel: 9525 3463 Website: www.afmelbourne.com.au

Untitled, 2010. Photographs by: Alex Lyne

Front: Senye Shen, Passing (detail), 2010, freezer bags and air

[back cover]

[front cover]

FOLD 1

Passing, 2010. Freezer bags and air.

SENYE SHEN Senye Shen’s installations are related to the impermanence and intangible things of life.

She seeks to provide an ethereal or ephemeral experience in a transformed space, which aims to alter the state of consciousness of the viewer. It is through this given material that has been installed in the space, that Shen seeks to create this sensible feeling, a different perspective, that heightens the awareness of intangible things, and to bring to the forefront through its tactile association.

JESSICA VAN SPALL

CASPAR ZIKA

Jessica Van Spall’s work explores the universal phenomenon of feeling ‘alone in a crowd’—the idea that social interaction and communication can be internally contained from the outside world through the subconscious and conscious use of psychological barriers. This self-exclusion is particularly true in individuals with traumatic pasts. The artist says that she often feels unable to relate or cut off from those around her on some level, the realisation that this is self imposed and yet unchangeable is an eye opening experience. Van Spall’s installation creates physical boundaries between viewer and the ‘world’ reflecting the unconscious way individuals impose barriers on the self.

Caspar Zika works across a variety of mediums encompassing sculpture, installation and time based media. His works are generally site specific; using a variety of objects and mixed media; from mechanised devices coupled with rudimentary tools to drawing implements. Zika’s practice explores the relationship individuals have with their interior architectural environments. Through documentation of gestures and monotonous mechanical cycles he gives recorded form to the actions of people in space.

Themes such as childhood, vocation and the processes involved in ‘art-making’ have been a constant source of interest throughout his practice. The meaningfulness of the gesture and futility of artistic creation are ongoing points of reference.

BIOGRAPHY: Jessica Van Spall, born 1988 recently finished her BFA at Monash University majoring in Printmedia and Theory. Her various media of choice include audio, installation and print, in an effort to create a phenomenological connection between her art and the viewer.

BIOGRAPHY: Senye Shen studied a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in Monash University and Diploma of Visual Arts in Swinburne. Initially she focused on painting and drawing, later, she mainly focused on installation works that related to space, movement, light and invisible things that one does not consciously deal with. She participated solo and with group shows, was a finalist in many art exhibitions, and she received art awards plus commissioned works.

Tune out, 2010. Installation with fabric and ink

Inbetween, 2010. Video and mixed medium instillation, dimensions variable.

AUTUMN TANSEY Only in liminal space can transformation occur. Inbetween draws on the relationship between humans, animals and the land into a tangible space, with the recurring motif of contamination as a reaction to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The broken remnants of a past event are the focus within the installation, and as the shadows seep over the costume and darken the space, a ghostly presence is found that alludes to a spiritual lingering. The two parts have juxtaposing significance; the nest acts as a place of birth, a sign of renewal, and the floating feathers become a sign of ascension and death, and yet both of these are tainted from the past and the present. The emptiness of the space between the objects allows for thoughts around liminality, becoming a space for transformation Inbetween.

BIOGRAPHY: Autumn Tansey has recently completed a Bachelor Fine Arts (Photomedia) from Monash University in 2010. Whilst having always been creative, Autumns background in dancing and clothing design contribute to the performative and textural qualities within her work. Some recent highlights include receiving the Kayell Australia Excellence in Photomedia Award, the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates, and a nomination for Hatched 2011 at PICA. Autumn has exhibited at Obscura Gallery, Trocadero Art Spaces, Tinning St. Gallery, Monash Faculty Gallery and Without Pier Gallery, with career highlights including a residency in Prato, Italy in 2009.

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BIOGRAPHY: Caspar Zika is an emerging installation and video artist based in Melbourne, Australia. After studying neuroscience at La Trobe University, travelling extensively and living overseas for several years, he is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts (part-time) at Monash University which is due for completion by the end of 2011.

In 2010 he took part in the Monash University Graduate Exhibition where he was awarded with the Place Gallery Award, Coates & Wood Sculpture Award and Alliance Francaise Prize for Monash University Graduates.

In 2011 he is due to participate in several group shows and a solo exhibition at Place Gallery.

He is currently negotiating to display work in a number of unused commercial spaces awaiting demolition or redevelopment in the inner suburbs of Melbourne as a way of extending and developing his practice.

FORECAST GABRIELLA CALANDRO YSABELLE DAUGUET APRIL FRENCH AMY HEALY VALERIYA OGORODNYK JUSTINE ROUSE AMANDA SANTAMARIA SENYE SHEN JESSICA VAN SPALL AUTUMN TANSEY CASPAR ZIKA

Recipients of the 2010 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates.

05– 21 May 2011 This is the third year that the Alliance Française Melbourne has collaborated with the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University in selecting students for this graduate show.

Forecast celebrates the interdisciplinary nature of the practice being developed by graduates from the Department of Fine Arts at Monash University. This exhibition also gives these artists the opportunity to contribute to a dialog that recognises the fragile state of the environment, culture and the psyche.

forecast

Curated by Patrice Pauc and Matthew Perkins

Alliance Française Gallery

51 Grey Street ST KILDA VIC 3182 Tel: 9525 3463 Website: www.afmelbourne.com.au

Untitled, 2010. Photographs by: Alex Lyne

Front: Senye Shen, Passing (detail), 2010, freezer bags and air

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